Disagree. The Republicans currently think they're doing payback for a decade of humiliation and norm-violation, but George Soros, Hollywood, and the NYT still exist and are still doing fine. Harvard is having a tough time but is far from collapsing; nobody seriously thinks "I shouldn't apply to Harvard because it might not be prestigious and important in four years". This is because, even if Trump is 10x more norm-violating than previous administrations, there's still quite a lot of rule of law left, and these organizations are hard to attack. If the Democrats decide to do their own payback for four years of humiliation and norm-violation, I doubt they will be any more ruthless or have any better luck.
Also, I think future Dems will be in-touch-with-reality enough (ie more so than the Trump administration) that, confronted with the possibility that kneecapping the tech industry would hurt the economy / America's geopolitical position, enough of them will back down to fatally weaken the coalition in favor.
I predict they pass a couple of laws that make life a bit harder for some tech companies, but not much more so than Lina Khan did last time around, and not in a way the average person on the ground has to worry about much. Musk might be vulnerable because SpaceX gets government contracts, but it's not like he has great competitors who the government can switch to.
yeah I’d vote for slicing up Google and Microsoft into smaller businesses. And do we think Apple’s immense cash reserves will be left untaxed after the central party in Beijing annexes Taiwan?
I hang out mostly with normie conservative parents, and the real anger at tech comes from its addictive properties and the conflicts that it creates within families, especially families with teenagers.
Breaking up monopolies is a red herring. You need to hardwire devices to limit the total hours of doom scrolling and video gaming and shut to down after 11pm.
My sense in (brief) conversations with those handling tech policy under biden was that competition with china and the economy were too important to sleep on AI.
That being said, I do think that you are underestimating the possibility of an AOC or bernie left figure winning a primary in 2028, and how much more tough on tech they would be than a biden like figure. This does assume slightly longer timelines (~10yr) than you do, but I think there is a world where they gut development, china is happy to avoid the risk from a race, and Europe drags its heels. I think such a world is the most salient possibility for slow (decades) timelines.
Yes I don't think Biden would have crippled AI, but the next Dem is likely to be quite different from Biden. We have only experienced six months of trump--imagine how radicalized we will be after three and a half years.
This seems about right (assuming AI doesn't advance enough that we get a groundswell of popular backlash by the next time Democrats are in power), but I think it might understate Democratic commitment to the rule of law. Because Trump is so flagrantly against democratic norms, that drives people who really care about them into the Democratic camp, and then Democrats reinforce their identity as the party that cares about the rule of law. Also, Democrats tend to be pretty quick to drop people who they view as immoral (see Menendez, where only a few Republicans called on him to resign but many Democrats did; this can sort of be explained by partisan considerations but not entirely), making it possible for them to keep longstanding norms in place.
The democratic party that takes power after this term is likely to be quite different from the one that governed under Biden. I think people underestimate the anger that is brewing under the surface, just like folks underestimated the ways that Obama made the Republicans angry. But we will all find out soon enough.
True but will that anger be enough to propel a candidate to victory in 28? Given the Dems problems with young men I could see them going full "dark woke" socialist and writing another "longest suicide note in history" party manifesto.
I think Bill Clinton was immoral in a number of ways (and was understood as such during his presidency), and democrats were happy to look past it because he had delivered power after 12 years of Republican administration. And, at least from what I remember, the party of Bush was considerably more ethically constrained than the party of Trump after eight years out of power. I certainly think that the current Democratic party is much more interested in ethical behavior and the rule of law than the current Republican party, but I don't find it hard to picture a scenario where, after 12 years of Trump as president or president-in-exile, Democrats embrace a more authoritarian leader who is seen as able to deliver victory.
This is a reasonable point, but a) Clinton was thirty years or so ago, Democrats have changed since and b) I don't think it's easy for people with authoritarian inclinations to get to the point where they could be legitimate Democratic Party contenders, even if they have popular support.
I don't think it's going to go like this, but it's a compelling enough vision that I'm saving it and scheduling at least one reread 16 months from now, and maybe more down the line.
This parable has a core insight about fragility of complexity. I think some portion of the AI-doomer crowd talk about a hypothetic malevolent AI as a free floating online agent, but the internet relies on undersea cables and servers with known addresses, much as GPS relies on just 31 satellites. Without continual maintenance, this network will atrophy and decay. Without motivated people working to maintain it, there can be no AI.
As someone who leans toward thinking AI will likely take over one day (but not forever--as there is no such thing), I've found arguments about why that won't come to pass generally lacking, until now. Your story paints a really convincing picture of the way we may continue to fumble along in our fragile, human way. . . and how that may spare us this particular AI future.
Excellent medium for exploring the consequences of jettisoning the rule of law, which both parties have found inconvenient in recent years. (Trump is, of course, taking it much further, but Biden, or his puppet masters, didn't care much about the law when told they couldn't just cancel student loans, for instance.)
The value of the tale format, contra Scott Alexander below, is that the real story has yet to be written. There are still enough principled people pushing back in the courts that the elimination of law may not happen. You've shown us one possible path, and not the worst one.
I recently read The Technological Republic, by Alex Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska of Palantir. The book is terrible--a huge mess that has some interesting thoughts presented in an utterly incoherent way along with a lot of random screeds.(Editors don't apparently give rich and powerful people honest editorial feedback--or maybe the original was even worse.) One thing that's clear is that their model statesman is Lee Kwan Yew, as if the Singapore model would work in a continental republic of 300+ million people. I was reminded of this by your example of the good dictator.
I sometimes think we're entering the backstory of The Diamond Age, the chaotic time when society broke down before reconstituting into phyles.
I do think it can be avoided...but I don't know if a toothless democratic party that is unable to punish lawbreakers is preferable to a dictator. The system cannot just be that you can take office, violate the law for four years, and walk away scot free. But with the current court system, there is no way to punish right wing lawbreakers, because the Supreme Court steps in to save them. So what recourse then is there to the law?
The court stymies Trump, but it also protected him from prosecution, resulting in his reappearance. It'll do the same for him, Elon, and the rest of his regime after they're out of office. This results in a scenario where people are incentivized to push hard and break the law, because there are no meaningful consequences for doing so.
I really liked the ending of this tale, Naomi. I think the final observation —that A.I. means much more to people as a mythos or metaphor than as an actuality—is exactly correct.
With the overall story, we really do not know for sure what will happen in the future, so it’s reasonable to draw from the past. The whole “United States as Roman Republic Deux” premise may be overdone, but this version with Joanna keeps the arc engaging.
Intriguing future history. Although, as long as big money is necessary to get elected, then the wealthy who have shamed themselves by backing Trump are probably safe.
A huge error that is underestimated: no one important was punished after the 2008 crash. Jed Rakoff had a great article in the NYRB about this.
Money isn't really necessary to get elected though. Dems have consistently outspent Trump, and yet here we are. What's necessary is a compelling story. Defeating tech is pretty compelling. Moreover, many old-economy oligarchs would be happy if tech got kneecapped.
Very good, very thought-provoking story. And I think you are doing really good things with this story form -- this way of quite openly instead of in disguise building stories around a -- message? inquiry? essay subject? -- but also using the form of fiction to make it work.
Thank you! I definitely still consider myself a sci-fi writer (at least intermittently). Would love if I could someday convince sci-fi journals to publish some of my stories that are in this format.
I love the way this was structured, flowing so effectively from what is happening presently into what could well happen in the near and distant future. I agree with another commenter that this is one to save and re-read periodically as we experience wherever this tectonic societal shift is taking us. Thanks for this thoughtful and beautifully written piece! It does exactly what the best speculative fiction ought to do, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time.
looking at this story in light of the sudden and total collapse of Trump / Elon relations since it was published… has prophecy struck again at woman of letters dot com?
Disagree. The Republicans currently think they're doing payback for a decade of humiliation and norm-violation, but George Soros, Hollywood, and the NYT still exist and are still doing fine. Harvard is having a tough time but is far from collapsing; nobody seriously thinks "I shouldn't apply to Harvard because it might not be prestigious and important in four years". This is because, even if Trump is 10x more norm-violating than previous administrations, there's still quite a lot of rule of law left, and these organizations are hard to attack. If the Democrats decide to do their own payback for four years of humiliation and norm-violation, I doubt they will be any more ruthless or have any better luck.
Also, I think future Dems will be in-touch-with-reality enough (ie more so than the Trump administration) that, confronted with the possibility that kneecapping the tech industry would hurt the economy / America's geopolitical position, enough of them will back down to fatally weaken the coalition in favor.
I predict they pass a couple of laws that make life a bit harder for some tech companies, but not much more so than Lina Khan did last time around, and not in a way the average person on the ground has to worry about much. Musk might be vulnerable because SpaceX gets government contracts, but it's not like he has great competitors who the government can switch to.
Let's see. I think tech underestimates the anger against it.
yeah I’d vote for slicing up Google and Microsoft into smaller businesses. And do we think Apple’s immense cash reserves will be left untaxed after the central party in Beijing annexes Taiwan?
I hang out mostly with normie conservative parents, and the real anger at tech comes from its addictive properties and the conflicts that it creates within families, especially families with teenagers.
Breaking up monopolies is a red herring. You need to hardwire devices to limit the total hours of doom scrolling and video gaming and shut to down after 11pm.
My sense in (brief) conversations with those handling tech policy under biden was that competition with china and the economy were too important to sleep on AI.
That being said, I do think that you are underestimating the possibility of an AOC or bernie left figure winning a primary in 2028, and how much more tough on tech they would be than a biden like figure. This does assume slightly longer timelines (~10yr) than you do, but I think there is a world where they gut development, china is happy to avoid the risk from a race, and Europe drags its heels. I think such a world is the most salient possibility for slow (decades) timelines.
Yes I don't think Biden would have crippled AI, but the next Dem is likely to be quite different from Biden. We have only experienced six months of trump--imagine how radicalized we will be after three and a half years.
This seems about right (assuming AI doesn't advance enough that we get a groundswell of popular backlash by the next time Democrats are in power), but I think it might understate Democratic commitment to the rule of law. Because Trump is so flagrantly against democratic norms, that drives people who really care about them into the Democratic camp, and then Democrats reinforce their identity as the party that cares about the rule of law. Also, Democrats tend to be pretty quick to drop people who they view as immoral (see Menendez, where only a few Republicans called on him to resign but many Democrats did; this can sort of be explained by partisan considerations but not entirely), making it possible for them to keep longstanding norms in place.
The democratic party that takes power after this term is likely to be quite different from the one that governed under Biden. I think people underestimate the anger that is brewing under the surface, just like folks underestimated the ways that Obama made the Republicans angry. But we will all find out soon enough.
True but will that anger be enough to propel a candidate to victory in 28? Given the Dems problems with young men I could see them going full "dark woke" socialist and writing another "longest suicide note in history" party manifesto.
We will all find out. If we’ve learned anything from the last ten years, it’s that we’re all merely bystanders.
Agreed. I felt like I knew which way the world was heading in 2016 and now I do not.
I think Bill Clinton was immoral in a number of ways (and was understood as such during his presidency), and democrats were happy to look past it because he had delivered power after 12 years of Republican administration. And, at least from what I remember, the party of Bush was considerably more ethically constrained than the party of Trump after eight years out of power. I certainly think that the current Democratic party is much more interested in ethical behavior and the rule of law than the current Republican party, but I don't find it hard to picture a scenario where, after 12 years of Trump as president or president-in-exile, Democrats embrace a more authoritarian leader who is seen as able to deliver victory.
This is a reasonable point, but a) Clinton was thirty years or so ago, Democrats have changed since and b) I don't think it's easy for people with authoritarian inclinations to get to the point where they could be legitimate Democratic Party contenders, even if they have popular support.
I don't think it's going to go like this, but it's a compelling enough vision that I'm saving it and scheduling at least one reread 16 months from now, and maybe more down the line.
It's true. We are all just bystanders at this point
Great read. It felt bluntly real.
Thank you!
As a longtime participant in the Edgy Dangerous Iconoclastic Truthteller community, I'm very willing to co-sign this description of it.
High praise!
This parable has a core insight about fragility of complexity. I think some portion of the AI-doomer crowd talk about a hypothetic malevolent AI as a free floating online agent, but the internet relies on undersea cables and servers with known addresses, much as GPS relies on just 31 satellites. Without continual maintenance, this network will atrophy and decay. Without motivated people working to maintain it, there can be no AI.
Thank you! I guess the theory is that AI will become smart enough to manipulate humanity into doing its bidding. Seems iffy, but who knows.
As someone who leans toward thinking AI will likely take over one day (but not forever--as there is no such thing), I've found arguments about why that won't come to pass generally lacking, until now. Your story paints a really convincing picture of the way we may continue to fumble along in our fragile, human way. . . and how that may spare us this particular AI future.
Thanks ;)
Excellent medium for exploring the consequences of jettisoning the rule of law, which both parties have found inconvenient in recent years. (Trump is, of course, taking it much further, but Biden, or his puppet masters, didn't care much about the law when told they couldn't just cancel student loans, for instance.)
The value of the tale format, contra Scott Alexander below, is that the real story has yet to be written. There are still enough principled people pushing back in the courts that the elimination of law may not happen. You've shown us one possible path, and not the worst one.
I recently read The Technological Republic, by Alex Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska of Palantir. The book is terrible--a huge mess that has some interesting thoughts presented in an utterly incoherent way along with a lot of random screeds.(Editors don't apparently give rich and powerful people honest editorial feedback--or maybe the original was even worse.) One thing that's clear is that their model statesman is Lee Kwan Yew, as if the Singapore model would work in a continental republic of 300+ million people. I was reminded of this by your example of the good dictator.
I sometimes think we're entering the backstory of The Diamond Age, the chaotic time when society broke down before reconstituting into phyles.
I do think it can be avoided...but I don't know if a toothless democratic party that is unable to punish lawbreakers is preferable to a dictator. The system cannot just be that you can take office, violate the law for four years, and walk away scot free. But with the current court system, there is no way to punish right wing lawbreakers, because the Supreme Court steps in to save them. So what recourse then is there to the law?
I think you’re unduly pessimistic about the Supreme Court. There’s a reason Trump has taken to attacking the Federalist Society. But we shall see.
The court stymies Trump, but it also protected him from prosecution, resulting in his reappearance. It'll do the same for him, Elon, and the rest of his regime after they're out of office. This results in a scenario where people are incentivized to push hard and break the law, because there are no meaningful consequences for doing so.
I really liked the ending of this tale, Naomi. I think the final observation —that A.I. means much more to people as a mythos or metaphor than as an actuality—is exactly correct.
With the overall story, we really do not know for sure what will happen in the future, so it’s reasonable to draw from the past. The whole “United States as Roman Republic Deux” premise may be overdone, but this version with Joanna keeps the arc engaging.
Great story, I agree with some points, disagree with others.
Thanks!
Love this ♡ you've got my support
Intriguing future history. Although, as long as big money is necessary to get elected, then the wealthy who have shamed themselves by backing Trump are probably safe.
A huge error that is underestimated: no one important was punished after the 2008 crash. Jed Rakoff had a great article in the NYRB about this.
Money isn't really necessary to get elected though. Dems have consistently outspent Trump, and yet here we are. What's necessary is a compelling story. Defeating tech is pretty compelling. Moreover, many old-economy oligarchs would be happy if tech got kneecapped.
See, you still are a Sci Fi writer! :)
Very good, very thought-provoking story. And I think you are doing really good things with this story form -- this way of quite openly instead of in disguise building stories around a -- message? inquiry? essay subject? -- but also using the form of fiction to make it work.
Thank you! I definitely still consider myself a sci-fi writer (at least intermittently). Would love if I could someday convince sci-fi journals to publish some of my stories that are in this format.
Wow, that is a fascinating story!
Taking a longer historical view of similar situations . . .
https://peterturchin.substack.com/p/revolution-devours-its-children
I should probably read more Turchin!
I love the way this was structured, flowing so effectively from what is happening presently into what could well happen in the near and distant future. I agree with another commenter that this is one to save and re-read periodically as we experience wherever this tectonic societal shift is taking us. Thanks for this thoughtful and beautifully written piece! It does exactly what the best speculative fiction ought to do, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time.
Thank you! What a compliment. I really appreciate it.
looking at this story in light of the sudden and total collapse of Trump / Elon relations since it was published… has prophecy struck again at woman of letters dot com?
I had that thought! Although that break was so inevitable it's strange that Elon and Trump themselves didn't see it coming